Economist Sez: Torture Not-So-Good

The Economist ran a nice, well-considered editorial about the U.S. and torture (reposted in full because [a] it's short and [b] the link will expire):

http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis...ory_id=5139141

How to lose friends and alienate people

The Bush administration's approach to torture beggars belief

THERE are many difficult trade-offs for any president when it comes to diplomacy and the fight against terrorism. Should you, for instance, support an ugly foreign regime because it is the enemy of a still uglier one? Should a superpower submit to the United Nations when it is not in its interests to do so? Amid this fog, you would imagine that George Bush would welcome an issue where America's position should be luminously clear—namely an amendment passed by Congress to ban American soldiers and spies from torturing prisoners. Indeed, after the disastrous stories of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and Afghanistan, you might imagine that a shrewd president would have sponsored such a law himself to set the record straight.

But you would be wrong. This week saw the sad spectacle of an American president lamely trying to explain to the citizens of Panama that, yes, he would veto any such bill but, no, “We do not torture.” Meanwhile, Mr Bush's increasingly error-prone vice-president, Dick Cheney, has been across on Capitol Hill trying to bully senators to exclude America's spies from any torture ban. To add a note of farce to the tragedy, the administration has had to explain that the CIA is not torturing prisoners at its secret prisons in Asia and Eastern Europe—though of course it cannot confirm that such prisons exist.

The nub of the torture debate is an amendment sponsored by John McCain, a Republican senator who was himself tortured by the Vietnamese. The amendment, based on the American army's own field manual and passed in the Senate by 90 votes to nine, states that “no individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Mr McCain's aim was simple enough: to clear up any doubt that could possibly exist about America's standards.

That doubt does, alas, exist—and has been amplified by the administration's heavy-handed efforts to stifle the McCain amendment. This, after all, is a White House that has steadfastly tried to keep “enemy combatants” beyond the purview of American courts, whose defence secretary has publicly declared that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the battle against al-Qaeda and whose Justice Department once produced an infamous memorandum explaining how torture was part of the president's war powers. The revelation in the Washington Post that the CIA maintains a string of jails, where it can keep people indefinitely and in secret, only heightens the suspicion that Mr Cheney wants the agency to keep using “enhanced interrogation techniques”. These include “waterboarding”, or making a man think he is drowning.

Although Mr Cheney has not had the guts to make his case in public, the argument that torture is sometimes justified is not a negligible one. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, presumed to be in one of the CIA's “black prisons”, is thought to have information about al-Qaeda's future plans. Surely it is vital to extract that information, no matter how? Some people think there should be a system of “torture warrants” for special cases. But where exactly should the line be drawn? And are the gains really so dramatic that it is worth breaking the taboo against civilised democracies condoning torture? For instance, Mr McCain argues that torture is nearly always useless as an interrogation technique, since under it people will say anything to their tormentors.

If the pragmatic gains in terms of information yielded are dubious, the loss to America in terms of public opinion are clear and horrifically large. Abu Ghraib was a gift to the insurgency in Iraq; Guantánamo Bay and its dubious military commissions, now being examined by the Supreme Court, have acted as recruiting sergeants for al-Qaeda around the world. In the cold war, America championed the Helsinki human-rights accords. This time, the world's most magnificent democracy is struggling against vile terrorists who thought nothing of slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians—and yet the administration has somehow contrived to turn America's own human-rights record into a subject of legitimate debate.

Mr Bush would rightly point out that anti-Americanism is to blame for some of the opprobrium heaped on his country. But why encourage it so cavalierly and in such an unAmerican way? Nearly two years after Abu Ghraib, the world is still waiting for a clear statement of America's principles on the treatment of detainees. Mr McCain says he will keep on adding his amendment to different bills until Mr Bush signs one of them. Every enemy of terrorism should hope he does so soon.

They're British, and so they hate freedom. Except for when they fight for us. Then they kind of like freedom. But the rest of the time they're freedom-haters.

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Originally Posted by Lemurmania

They're British, and so they hate freedom.

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Oh sure. Besides, The Economist has been the flagship of classic liberalism since 1843, undermining the values of the free world in the spirit of its founder, James Wilson, a Scottish hat maker who advocated free trade, peace, internationalism and other such treachery.

[quote/]Torture Not-So-Good[/quote] news to me. I thought we were making friends~:cool:

Couldn't torture be made more fun or something?

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Originally Posted by Geoffrey S

Couldn't torture be made more fun or something?

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We're going to half drown you for a few hours, then go down to the pub for the evening together. Repeat until the stupidity of it drives the imprisoned person made and they give in.

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Originally Posted by Geoffrey S

Couldn't torture be made more fun or something?

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Tickling? :inquisitive:

How about we have them spin a wheel with different types of torturing on it!

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Originally Posted by Geoffrey S

Couldn't torture be made more fun or something?

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Isn't that what prompted Celine Dion's rise to stardom?

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Originally Posted by BDC

We're going to half drown you for a few hours, then go down to the pub for the evening together. Repeat until the stupidity of it drives the imprisoned person made and they give in.

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That's called fraternity hazing. Been there, done that.

what happens "at the top" eventually trickles down. if everyone looks the other way on this, for whatever reasons, expect your local constabulatory to start thinking it's okay, too.

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Originally Posted by Lemurmania

They're British, and so they hate freedom. Except for when they fight for us. Then they kind of like freedom. But the rest of the time they're freedom-haters.

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Pretty much ~D

Yep us Brits really are freedom haters. Heck we only engineered the free market, I mean we only stood up to a few conquering European tyrants.
Heck! the bloody PM has only sent a few hundred to their deaths in a war that no one in Britain really believes in but were still there helping you guys out.
But hey the U.S deosn't need allies right?:hide:

why the couch? no need to hide

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Originally Posted by Bopa the Magyar

Yep us Brits really are freedom haters. Heck we only engineered the free market, I mean we only stood up to a few conquering European tyrants.
Heck! the bloody PM has only sent a few hundred to their deaths in a war that no one in Britain really believes in but were still there helping you guys out.
But hey the U.S deosn't need allies right?:hide:

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Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

Why does the economist hate freedom?

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Because if they help suppress freedom, then the governments will eventually suppress freedom of the press outright, then all the people at the Economist will be unemployed and get to stay home, watch Oprah and brush up on terrorism techniques, then move to the Middle East, join Osama's club, and build nuclear weapons to drop on the US.

Amazes me you didn't figure this out. I mean... c'mon! It's as clear as the summer sun.

I used to get the economist every week (because my father does the same and so I read it all through secondary school). I got very tired of its slant on things over the past few years. I no longer buy it (the quick read of the most interesting articles whilst in the shop though).

Here's a nice primer on the torture techniques, the memos, the policies and the evidence, with some nice illustrations to make everything crystal-clear. "Club Gitmo" T-shirts created by fat, deaf ex-junkies sold separately.

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Originally Posted by Lemurmania

Here's a nice primer on the torture techniques, the memos, the policies and the evidence, with some nice illustrations to make everything crystal-clear. "Club Gitmo" T-shirts created by fat, deaf ex-junkies sold separately.

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Good site, thanks for the heads-up. Takes care of the ''rotten apples' approach. Or rather, it points out what makes the apples rot.

While the public expressed outrage at the photographic evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib, the writers and architects of U.S. torture policy have been largely forgiven. Many have been promoted. There is something about bare-bones legal analysis that immunizes—even sterilizes—the contents of the message.